MODEL FOR OPTIMUM DEPLOYMENT OF EMERGENCY REPAIR TRUCKS: APPLICATION IN ELECTRIC UTILITY INDUSTRY

Abstract

The uninterrupted supply of electricity is an important criterion for measuring the quality of service in the electric utility industry. An effective method for reducing service unavailability is to reduce the response time of emergency repair trucks (ERTs). An integrated methodological framework for the optimum deployment of ERTs is presented. The proposed methodology is based on an iterative procedure that involves the partition of a given geographical area into service territories and the subsequent simulation of the emergency repair operations within each service territory. A real-world problem is used to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed methodology. The results of the case study suggest that increasing the number of available ERTs from one to two decreases the response time by 64%, whereas an increase from two to three can provide only an additional 8% reduction. The reduction is mainly attributed to reduced dispatch time. Another significant observation is the fact that during heavy load, the nearest-neighbor dispatching policy provides better performance than the first-come, first-served policy. The proposed model is used by an electric utility company as a tool for determining the required number of ERTs and their service territories in such a way as to achieve predetermined service unavailability objectives.